Amazon's Plastic Packaging | Oceana

Amazon

It’s Time for Plastic-Free Packaging

The Campaign

Since 2020, Oceana has campaigned for the company to dramatically reduce its plastic packaging footprint. As the world’s largest e-commerce company, Amazon has a responsibility to manage the waste it creates and minimize its environmental and climate impact. Historically, Amazon uses a lot of plastic packaging, especially packaging made of plastic film, which is the deadliest type of plastic to large ocean animals. In 2021 alone, Oceana estimated that Amazon generated 709 million pounds of plastic packaging waste. Oceana found that up to 26 million pounds of this plastic waste could end up in the world’s waterways and seas. In October 2024, Amazon announced it had removed all plastic air pillows from delivery packaging globally, eliminating the use of billions of these pillows every year and replacing them with recycled paper filler.

 

The Problem

Plastic is a major source of pollution for the world’s oceans. Scientists now estimate 33 billion pounds of plastic wash into the ocean every year. Plastic packaging harms marine life and biodiversity when it enters the marine environment. Sea turtles and other animals mistake the kind of plastic used by Amazon – such as plastic bags – for food. Studies have estimated that individuals from 55% of seabird species, 70% of marine mammal species, and 100% of sea turtle species have ingested or become entangled in plastic.

What Amazon Should Do

It is clear that Amazon can solve its plastic problem. Oceana has advocated for Amazon to reduce its plastic packaging use since 2020. Since then, Amazon has made significant strides to reduce its plastic footprint, including:

  • Eliminated plastic air pillows globally from its delivery packages and replaced them with recycled paper filler.
  • Reducing or eliminating single-use plastic packaging throughout Europe and India.
  • Published its plastic footprint, excluding third-party sellers, for the first time.
  • Announced in its 2022 sustainability report that its overall use of single-use plastic across its global operations network (i.e., orders shipped through its fulfillment centers) declined by 11.6% from 2021 to 2022.
  • Committed to “phasing out padded bags containing plastics in favor of recyclable alternatives.”

Amazon’s reduction in plastic use is good news for the oceans. But there’s still more to do. Amazon should make a global commitment to move away from single-use plastic packaging and facilitate a switch to reuse systems wherever possible. The company should continue to publicly report on its plastic packaging footprint for all products sold through Amazon’s website and report and take responsibility for the full climate impacts of all products sold and packaging use through Amazon’s website.

 

Take Action

TELL AMAZON: U.S. CUSTOMERS DESERVE A PLASTIC FREE COMMITMENT

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